The present invention relates generally to improvements in floor mops and the like and their method of production and it relates more particularly to an improved water absorbent mop yarn and to an improved method of producing mop yarn.
The conventional wet floor mop is formed of twisted cotton yarns which have been bleached to increase their wettability and water absorbency. Such a mop possesses many drawbacks. The yarns have little strength and durability and hence a short life expectancy, are easily tangled with each other and individually untwisted to interfere with and limit the use of the mop, and they retain dirt and frequently sour and turn musty and otherwise leave much to be desired. In order to overcome the drawbacks of cotton mop yarn, there has been proposed and used as a mop yarn a core yarn surrounded by a sheath of regenerated cellulose sponge which is bonded to the core yarn and which has a skin surface of greater density and lower porosity than the body of the sheath. The yarns are individually produced by extruding a viscose sheath containing a pore forming material onto the individual core yarns and then regenerating the cellulose. A cellulose sponge sheathed mop yarn and its production are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,409,660 issued Oct. 22, 1946, No. 2,600,143 issued June 10, 1952 and No. 3,321,903 issued May 30, 1967. In U.S. Pat. No. 3,068,545 there is described a process of treating sponge coated yarns by passing the yarns between abrasive covered rollers to abrade the skin surface and raise a fibrous nap on both sides of the yarn. While the sponge coated yarns heretofore proposed overcame many of the drawbacks of the conventional cotton mop yarn, they possess numerous disadvantages. They are expensive and difficult to produce and have somewhat low water absorption and capillary speed properties and slow wettability and have other undesirable properties.